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The following was written by U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL,9) and University of Maine Professor Amy Fried.

March 31st marks the end of the first open enrollment period for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act – and also the end of Women’s History Month. It’s a fitting coincidence because the Affordable Care Act is a historic step forward for America’s women. Actually, at least four steps forward.

A pending decision by the U.S. Supreme Court could have big ramifications for the ability of home-based child care workers to organize.

The outcome of the Harris v. Quinn case would particularly impact home-based child care workers that receive state funding, affecting how and if they are able to effectively unionize and collectively bargain, argues a new report by the Washington, DC-based National Women’s Law Center.

The report offers a snapshot of the growing national movement to unionize in-home child care providers, who are overwhelmingly female, are often paid low wages and usually do not get benefits. Home-based child care workers at publicly-funded operations in 14 states, including Illinois, have won the right to organize and negotiate with states. That's up from just seven states in 2007, when the law center issued its first report on the issue.

More recently, home-based child care providers who receive state funding in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island won organizing and bargaining rights. But in places like Maine, Michigan and Wisconsin, home-based child care workers have seen their authority to organize and negotiate with their respective states revoked over the past few years.

The report noted that the push to unionize home-based child care providers has faced increased opposition, mostly related to the broader anti-union movement.

"It's not as though what we're seeing is something specific to this group of providers, but rather much more conservative legislatures and governors taking office and pushing legislation that would curtail the rights of unions, both in the private and public sector in some cases," explained Joan Entmacher, vice president for family economic security at the National Women's Law Center.

And the Supreme Court's pending ruling in the Pamela Harris v. Pat Quinn case, which centers around home-based health care aides in Illinois, could potentially mean another major setback for in-home child care providers as well as other home care workers.

Sources

The national “partisan arms race” that comes with the redistricting process is a leading obstacle for those who want to see states reform the way electoral district boundaries are drawn, said panelists at a redistricting reform discussion at the University of Chicago. Progress Illinois provides some of the highlights from the panel discussion.

Sources

People
in Illinois with various medical conditions have had to fork over 10
times more on average than what’s necessary for at least 20 brand name
drugs, according to a report from Illinois
PIRG and Community Catalyst.

Costs for these 20 drugs, including
Lipitor and Cipro, were kept high, because brand name pharmaceutical
companies paid generic makers to keep cheaper versions off the market
for a time. These agreements are known as “pay for delay.”

“It’s
outrageous that drug companies are paying off the competition to keep
prices high,” said Illinois PIRG State Director Brian Imus in a
statement. “Because of this, people in Illinois pay inflated drug
prices, or go without necessary medication. This needs to stop.”